Eric Geiger on The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Voice Over:
Welcome to the Stetzer Church Leaders Podcast, conversations with today’s top ministry leaders to help you lead better every day. And now, here are your hosts, Ed Stetzer and Daniel Yang.
Daniel Yang:
Welcome to the Sesser Church Leaders Podcast, where we’re helping Christian leaders navigate and lead through the cultural issues of our day. My name is Daniel Yang, national director of Churches of Welcome at World Relief. And today we’re talking with Eric Geiger. Eric is the senior pastor of Mariners Church in Irvine, California. He’s authored or co-authored several books, including Design to Lead the Church and Leadership Development, and the best selling church leadership book, Simple Church Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples. Be sure to keep an eye out for his course designed to lead, which will be on right now. Pastors plus.org. Eric is also the host of the Eric Geiger Leadership Podcast, which is a part of the Church Leaders Podcast Network. Be sure to check it out at Church leaders.com/podcast network. And now let’s go to Ed Stetzer, editor in chief of Outreach Magazine and the dean of the Talbot School of Theology. Okay, Eric, we were.
Ed Stetzer:
I mean, I’m just full disclosure, this is like my home church is Mariners Church, and I’m on staff here. What am I, the scholar in residence and teaching pastor motivational speaker.
Eric Geiger:
I like scholar in residence better. Okay.
Ed Stetzer:
All right, fair enough, fair enough. Okay. Um, so we just had our, what do you call it, the pastor’s retreat, like we did pastor’s retreat, and I, I.
Eric Geiger:
Think, I think, I think this year we might have called it pastors gathering because we didn’t go out of town. Right, right. That’s true. That’s true.
Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. And what? So I posted on the socials, you know, the kids are on the socials. I posted this 2020. You’ve been on the.
Eric Geiger:
Socials for a long time.
Ed Stetzer:
I’ve been on the socials, remember we did all that.
Eric Geiger:
So you, you.
Ed Stetzer:
You and I know each other. You were so.
Eric Geiger:
Early on the socials.
Ed Stetzer:
I know it’s.
Eric Geiger:
Crazy when Twitter, I mean now Twitter is really angry. But back when Twitter was happy people.
Ed Stetzer:
I loved it. Joe Thorne and Steve McCoy got me on Twitter. You remember Chris Martin used to work for us at LifeWay.
Eric Geiger:
You were on Twitter way before.
Ed Stetzer:
Me, 2007, Baby!
Eric Geiger:
2007 I wasn’t on Twitter until like 12. I don’t.
Ed Stetzer:
Even remember. All right, that’s that one. Stay with me. So anyway. But I did post this teaching plan. So again, people are listening to the podcast. They can’t see that in my hand. I have, I don’t know, maybe a 30 or 40 page document. Yep. Uh, a spiral bound notebook that says 2025 Teaching plan. And I posted it on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and everybody commented, can I see that? What does he do? What is this like? And I thought I thought we’d talk some about strategic planning. I want to get there eventually. I want to go through a little bit about mission, vision, values, things of that sort, because I’ve been pretty transparent in places before that I think you are the best leader I’ve ever led with. We’ve known each other, what, 20 years? This is the third place we’ve worked together Christ Fellowship Miami, LifeWay, and now Mariners Church. And so okay, so when and when I teach leadership, I reference you. And because I use you as an example in some of these things we’re going to talk some about designed to lead. I’m actually the general editor of this curriculum at called Right Now Pastors. Plus you do your course there. It’s not out yet, but when people listen to the podcast.
Ed Stetzer:
But you can go to right now pastors plus.org enter in your name. Your course will be out as part of that. I have a course in that on breaking barriers anyway. So when I when I talk about leadership, strategic planning and more, I think of you as a good example, a model that I’ve seen you do it. And that’s part of why I’m on the team at Mariners Church. But let’s start talking. Go back a little bit further because a couple of concerns, okay? Mariners church is a big church. It’s a monstrously big church. I think some people could tune out of our conversation early on. But so I want to say we’re going to talk about things that are appropriate for a church of 75 and 200 and more. These are not specific to large churches because you’ve done them in different churches of different sizes. So let’s even start with. So how do you try to have a clarity of vision mission values in a church that could be applicable because our audience is pastors and church leaders of all different kinds of sizes. Churches, where does it begin? Tell me about that.
Eric Geiger:
And so you mentioned that we’ll talk about the teaching plan. So the question you’re asking is.
Ed Stetzer:
Who’s going to further back?
Eric Geiger:
Further back? Because this is.
Ed Stetzer:
The strategic plan that you laid out for the year, kind of flows out of the vision, values and mission.
Eric Geiger:
I would say this is a strategic plan for utilizing the teaching wisely, right. But then, you know, I agree that you want to go broader.
Ed Stetzer:
And I have a thing where I want to talk about cycles of strategic planning, preaching, leadership development, next gen development. So we’re going to get to all of that. But I want you to go back to the very beginning. You brought great vision, clarity to everywhere you’ve been. I saw you do it at LifeWay. I saw you do it at Meredith’s church. I saw it from a distance. But at LifeWay, I saw you bring vision. Clarity, right. Talk about that.
Eric Geiger:
I love it. I think clarity is a gift. Clarity is a gift to the people that you serve. It’s a gift to the people that you serve alongside. Because if you don’t, if you don’t offer clarity, there’s so much time that is wasted on asking some of the same questions over and over again. And I’m not against discussion, but at some point you want to offer. Here’s our conclusion on these important matters so that we can execute so that we can shepherd.
Ed Stetzer:
We’ve made some decisions, yes, rather than the paralysis of constantly. We’re unsure about these things.
Eric Geiger:
Right. And just rehashing over and over again. I mean, just a small example of that I think will make sense to pastors and church leaders. If you don’t know what you’re going to do when somebody becomes a Christian at your church, if you don’t know how you’re going to follow up on the person, what you’re going to invite them to next, whether it’s a new Christians class or a one on one mentoring relationship or whatever it is for you. If you don’t have that clarity on that, then when you give a call to people to respond to the gospel, to repent, and you know, whether they fill out a card or walk forward or go to a prayer room, if you don’t know what you’re going to do every time you are rehashing, oh, what do we do? Right? And then and then then when that when you do that, there’s time wasted and lost. Instead of following up on the person so having clarity on I say that’s a small thing, but that’s a really big issue. You know how we’re going to care for someone when they become a Christian. Having clarity on that then frees people up to here’s how we. Here’s how we actually shepherd those people. And then you obviously watch the process. You nurse the process, you you shepherd the process so that you can shepherd the people. So that’s just one example.
Ed Stetzer:
And that would be like a strategic plan level.
Eric Geiger:
I’d say that’s an that’s an operational or execution or it’s a or shepherding issue. So to to go as you the language you use, which I think is wise to go further back, I would go back to the macro view of the church as a whole. So how are how are we going to make disciples? We know that we’re to make disciples. Well, let’s talk about what we believe. You know, our our doctrinal positions that those need clarity. So here at Mariners, we went through a several year process of writing position papers on key on key, um, cultural issues of the day, but also doctrinal positions like on spiritual gifts. You know, because we have we we need to know if we’re going to scale to reach more and more people. Our leaders need to be on the same page on what we believe. So there’s clarity about beliefs. Then there’s clarity about values. That is here’s what’s important here. Here’s how we live around here.
Ed Stetzer:
Here’s what is important here.
Eric Geiger:
Here’s what’s important. Here’s our values. This is what matters to us. That’s different from your beliefs, right? You know, I would say your belief on gender is not the same as we value the exposition of God’s Word, or we value serving the local community as Jesus has served us.
Ed Stetzer:
So one’s a theological position. Another is a value that you seek to actualize.
Eric Geiger:
Agreed. One is a belief, is a doctrinal position. And then values are it’s you could say it’s the soft, the soft skills of here’s how we live around here right now. Some some people debate on if your staff values should be different from your church values. We we actually we have them as the same. You have them same same. So we have a set of values and then clarity on mission. Here’s here’s what we are on the planet to do. Right. So values is how we do it. Mission is here’s what we do. Then there’s clarity on strategy, which is here’s how we execute the mission. So you know, mission values strategy are all really big. And I think you have to be careful. You don’t confuse them. So some would say, hey, we have a mission. It’s to know him and make him known.
Ed Stetzer:
Right. Very common mission statement.
Eric Geiger:
And I think it’s a it’s a beautiful statement, but it’s a bad mission statement.
Ed Stetzer:
What is Mariner’s mission statement?
Eric Geiger:
Inspire people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Right? The reason I’d say no and make him known is you never know. Actually, maybe it’s a fine mission statement. It’s a bad vision statement. Okay, so and I’ll talk about vision in a moment because you never know if it’s accomplished. Right. You never know if it’s done right. Um, vision is more short term. And you, you want to know that you’ve. So right now we have a vision to launch two new congregations in the next six months. Well, we’ll know six months from now if we’ve. Right. Sure, sure. That’s the vision. Yeah. And we’re able to rally people around. So we view vision as a short term, something we’re running at together as a team. But that vision is informed by our mission, right? Inspire people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world, our values and then our strategy. And so our strategy. You know, a long time ago I wrote Simple Church. Yeah, that’s that’s essentially a macro view of how you make disciples having a strategy for making disciples, how to how does all your programs from weekend worship service to small groups or Sunday school classes to volunteer opportunities. How do you pull all of those together so you can actually see disciples made at your church?
Ed Stetzer:
So I want to get down to the strategy. So and that’s because I think part of the strategic plan is the teaching plan. That’s a part of it.
Eric Geiger:
Part of that that’d be a that’d be a sub strategy under that. And I think.
Ed Stetzer:
People want to I mean, that was it was just fascinating how people were responding because I don’t think pastors naturally think this way. Normally some do, but most don’t. Okay. So we talked about the mission. Um, and we would also say too, that there are whole books of written people say this is how vision should be and this is how mission should be, and we’re describing it and defining it in a way that works in this context. And yeah.
Eric Geiger:
Those words get thrown around if you want to use them differently, that’s great. Let me just define how I’m using them. So we have the doctrine that’s about beliefs. I think that’s probably something that us church leaders care about. But maybe an and we should and an organization doesn’t think about it separately, but we think about beliefs or doctrine. Right? Then there’s mission. Here’s what your church is to do. Values, how you do it, how you live, and strategy. Here’s how we’re organized to accomplish the mission. So think about a football coach who says, hey, our mission is to win games. Great. But how are we going to win games? So if a church says, hey, we’re going to make disciples, awesome. That should be the mission of the church. In fact, Jesus gave us the mission. Yeah. So we don’t want to we we want to use his. We want to go with what he we might.
Ed Stetzer:
Put some fancy more language around it fearlessly, whatever it may be, but.
Eric Geiger:
It’s ultimately about making disciples. Okay. But if if we don’t give a strategy on how we make disciples, then we’re like the football coach who says, let’s win, let’s win, but never draws up plays, right? So we need to draw up some plays that we’ve tested that we believe, okay.
Ed Stetzer:
You’re getting a strategy and I want you to get strategy but values. So. Yeah. Um, because a couple of things that right now we’re in the process of redrawing our values at the Talbot School of Theology. Great. Just because it’s good to do that every once in a while, it’s not just because I’m the new leader. Everyone sort of said we need a new set of values that reflects our commitment to the church. It reflects our, you know, our theological space as a, you know, as this thriving evangelical school. Whatever. Okay. So you have values here. We have eight values. Eight values. Would you mind telling us a few of them? Maybe it might be too long, but give us a couple of them.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah. The first one is the word must be central. Okay. Um. Another is think big, act small. Love others as Jesus loved us. Intentional environments inspire courageous decisions. The story of Jesus creates storytellers. Okay.
Ed Stetzer:
So with that one part, I want to talk about the story of Jesus creates storytellers. That’s one of my favorite ones. Um, when I come to staff meeting all staff or pastor staff. Um, you actually and I and I do this some we did it last year and then we’re doing it more this year. You give out awards because what you celebrate, you know, you cultivate, you cultivate. So, so talk to us about how you do that. So the award of the last one you just gave about the story.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah. So each, each um, we have staff, all staff worship and meeting once a month and every month we recognize a person for each value. And so the person who gets the award for the story of Jesus creates storytellers is someone who’s inspiring people to share the gospel or is helping people tell the story of transformation that Jesus has done in their life. So it’s just recognizing the value of storytelling. And when we say storytelling, we’re not only referring to like a cool video, but helping people tell the story of Jesus in their life, you know?
Ed Stetzer:
And then again, when you celebrate, you become so, like, we’re going to one of ours is I we haven’t finalized the wording, so I don’t know what the wording is quite going to be. But, you know, connecting with the global church might be some variant of it. So we’ll give an award to one of our faculty who has helped us connect with a global partner with a global church. And so, so again, so, so those values, I think.
Eric Geiger:
When you celebrate that. So, you know, if it becomes, you know, the world is on our heart or, you know, we’re committed to the global whatever the whatever the language is more important. So many leaders get caught up on the language that, I mean, I think the language should be sticky. Yeah, but.
Ed Stetzer:
By sticky you mean something easy to remember. Yes, easy to replicate.
Eric Geiger:
But but so many leaders, they stop there on value integration. Right. And the sticky language. You’re not hearing me say it’s not important. Make it a sticky. But more important is that you would celebrate it, that you would hold people accountable.
Ed Stetzer:
I have consulted, I don’t do this much anymore. I’ve consulted with hundreds of churches over the years, help them develop values, and I would say one out of ten actually have an ongoing plan to to implement those values and to celebrate those values so that they replicate those values.
Eric Geiger:
Right. So very typical, not just in churches but organizations as well. They pay a consultant, they come in, they identify values. They put them in a slick brochure or put them on a webpage, put them on a poster, and then it gets buried in a file somewhere. You want if you’re going to, if you want. John Carter said, values are really here’s how we live around here. Values are um or he said, cultures, the shared values that drive the organization. It’s the shared values beneath the surface. So if you want values to actually drive behavior, you’ve got to teach them. You’ve got to celebrate them. You have to they should be in your annual review process.
Ed Stetzer:
And so in what I’ve seen of course, with you is all those things, but also the celebration and the monthly staff meeting. So everybody knows the values and there continue to be before people and that makes a distinction. So you get that.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah. So your faculty member who takes some extra time and connects with a student in Korea, or a cohort of students who are studying theology in Korea, and you brag on that faculty member in front of everybody. You you then in that moment are showing this is really important to us. How we treat the global church is really significant.
Ed Stetzer:
Giving away some things there, but I haven’t announced yet. But just just good. But great is a great hypothetical. I just.
Eric Geiger:
Made it up as.
Ed Stetzer:
Hypothetical. I love that, I love that. Okay. So then mission, you know, and then we talked about values and then you start talking about some of the strategies. So when you kind of what are what are some key components for church strategic planning.
Eric Geiger:
Okay. When it comes to strategy I think flock and sheep. Flock of sheep. And I’m speaking to a local church leader. Right. So flock is your macro strategy. It’s like your programming. And then sheep is what happens to that new Christian. What happens to the new guest? What happens to a first time giver. So we we watch our flock strategy here at Mariner’s. We call it the transformational loop. And so it is. It’s based on our mission because mission and strategy.
Ed Stetzer:
And where is the first place you published the Transformational Loop? Do you remember LifeWay? Didn’t we do that there?
Eric Geiger:
Um, Ashley. Transformational. This transformational loop was, you know, everyone uses the word transformation. That’s true. That’s true.
Ed Stetzer:
So it’s not the same thing. We talked about transformational groups or some of the other stuff. You all.
Eric Geiger:
Know the transformational.
Ed Stetzer:
Loop right here live on our conversation. Okay. So tell me about transformational loop. So I know because I’ve seen you talk about it here at Mariner’s. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
So transformational loop at Mariner’s is actually my predecessor Kenton. He put we’ve updated Shaw.
Ed Stetzer:
Was the former pastor.
Eric Geiger:
Former pastor. He put the transformational loop in place. And so that’s why.
Ed Stetzer:
We can’t say that we did it at life. No, because kid did it.
Eric Geiger:
But he did it after reading Simple Church. Oh, okay. Nice. So it’s so funny. So I, you know, I wasn’t here yet, but but I feel like I was a part of the transformational loop. So what I love about our transformational loop, and I give Kenton credit on this, is it is connected to our mission. So our mission is inspire people to follow Jesus.
Ed Stetzer:
And was that under Kenton that mission as well? So you didn’t change that? Didn’t change the values? You did change.
Eric Geiger:
Some of them. I did change the values. And even Ken told me, man, at some point you need to you need to make these your own.
Ed Stetzer:
Well, that’s what like when I came to Talbot, they were like, we got to update these values. And.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah, I think you have to be.
Ed Stetzer:
Oh, wait a second. I’m trying to remember if the mission update and then the values sort of flow out of that for us. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
So, um, of all those words I’m using, I think mission and values have to be handled more carefully when you change than strategy.
Ed Stetzer:
The strategy is a little more nimble.
Eric Geiger:
You can you should change strategy more frequently. Mission and values you’re tweaking with DNA. Yeah. And so I agree.
Ed Stetzer:
You’re very important.
Eric Geiger:
You want to do that really wisely.
Ed Stetzer:
And probably slowly if you’re a pastor or church leader.
Eric Geiger:
Yes. And also when you especially on values, you, Jim Collins said that what you’re wanting to do is uncover what’s already there. Right. As opposed to just, you know, go to some church website and, and copy and paste because you’re, you’re basically than trying to be some other culture that you’re not. So when you have values, it’s fine to have some aspirational values. We want to be this. But really the most of your values should be actual values.
Ed Stetzer:
So we actually did listening groups with our faculty. Great. And then we actually came. These are actual values. And they’re a couple of aspirational values we want to work towards. But they have emerged still emerging. That’s why I haven’t given you the language. No that’s beautiful.
Eric Geiger:
And so obviously there’s things you don’t want to celebrate. Yeah. Every culture every culture has organizational dysfunctions.
Ed Stetzer:
One of our key values. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
But but you raise up the things that that are great.
Ed Stetzer:
That are celebrate. Yeah, yeah. Move, move forward with that. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah. So those are our values. But when it comes to strategy, our mission is to inspire people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. You want your strategy to be deeply connected to your mission. Otherwise, you’re executing something that’s not connected to your mission. Right. So inspire people to follow Jesus. Our loop is follow Jesus, grow together. Serve one another, change the world. So our loop begins and ends with our mission. Follow Jesus. We use our weekend services. Grow together. We use rooted in life groups.
Ed Stetzer:
Rooted is a experience. Discipleship course. Discipleship course. Ten weeks, right? Right. I’ve been through it. Part of coming into Mariners. I did that because of being a mariners.
Eric Geiger:
And then serve one another is volunteer opportunities and change the world is what we do in our cities.
Ed Stetzer:
The broader mission.
Eric Geiger:
Local outreach, global outreach. So it’s it’s outreach.
Ed Stetzer:
So those just say the transformation loop one more time. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
Follow Jesus. Grow together. Serve one another. Change the world. Okay.
Ed Stetzer:
So that then, is an actualization of your mission and your values. But I’d say of.
Eric Geiger:
Your mission, not of the values. Okay. Fair enough. But the values.
Ed Stetzer:
How you do it.
Eric Geiger:
Is the values should impact everything we do. Okay.
Ed Stetzer:
So, so so then that’s where some of the you mentioned like follow Jesus might be related to weekend services. That’s where some of the strategic planning comes in right. Yes. Okay. So where then.
Eric Geiger:
And I would say that’s the flock strategy.
Ed Stetzer:
That’s the flock.
Eric Geiger:
Strategy. And then the sheep strategy is, you know. What are we doing for the new guest? For the person who became a Christian. And. And when I want the freedom to constantly tweak those strategies and add to, you know, so.
Ed Stetzer:
I had a conversation with a reporter at a that I think our church will end up in the global magazine that everyone will know. But since it’s not published yet, I won’t mention it. And and he said he said, well, like, um, I mean, don’t people just get lost in a church that size? Not a person of the Christian faith, but a person, you know, just asking questions or doing a thing on a megachurches. Right. And, and I and I said, well, no, every person is sort of nudged towards. Yes. I mean, intentionally, sometimes overwhelmingly towards something called rooted. So I kind of explained it and he asked some follow up questions. Okay, now that’s where large church so rooted could be. Hundreds of thousands of people come to a rooted on a given time. But every church, a church of 100, should have a strategy of what happens next when someone shows up at the church, right?
Eric Geiger:
I would say A small church that doesn’t have a strategy for what happens, can feel big.
Ed Stetzer:
Doesn’t have a strategy, will feel big.
Eric Geiger:
And a big church if they have strategies for how they care for people, can feel small. Oh, I get it.
Ed Stetzer:
Okay, right.
Eric Geiger:
Makes sense. I want to I want the church to feel small. Right? Right. For as small as small as the is, the person wants it to be. Right? One of the advantages of a of a church that is large and or a church our size is people. And it’s like your own personal life, your greatest strengths or your greatest weaknesses. They’re one of the great strengths of a of a large church is. And somebody who’s life just feels like it fell apart last week and they want to go to church, but they they kind of want to come in an anonymous way. Sure. Um, a very large gathering feels safer for them to come to. Not not not because they feel threatened, but because they just emotionally don’t want to engage.
Ed Stetzer:
Someone shows up at church 100. It’s beyond what I call the anonymity barrier. Everybody knows when you walk into a church at 50 that you’re new. Nobody knows that. Mariners if you’re new. Right.
Eric Geiger:
So it feels safe. So that’s a that’s a great strength for someone whose life is falling apart. Um, someone whose wife just got diagnosed with cancer. Someone who’s having all kinds of drama.
Ed Stetzer:
Dip your toe in.
Eric Geiger:
Dip. I can come, I can hear a message. It’s a great strength, a great weakness of a large church, a great weakness of a church. Our size is that people can stay anonymous, right? And so they can hide.
Ed Stetzer:
So we want them to come heal, but we don’t want them to stay forever and hide.
Eric Geiger:
No. And so we have to because we want to shepherd people. We must have processes that nudge people.
Ed Stetzer:
And is that the sheep strategy? Yes. You’re shepherding people. And so mariners it would be you come to the service which is in itself just has a gravitational pull because it’s a large church. I just spoke to a group of A5K group, whatever. That’s a group of pastors and their churches around that. And I said, you, you have a gravitational pull that if you just don’t do dumb things, still draws people in, but you have to have a strategy to move them totally Into that sense of community. So that’s the sheep strategy. And a church of 200 needs to have a sheep strategy to say, what’s the next step for a person who comes and visits?
Eric Geiger:
I think you I think you do need a sheep strategy, even even at that size church for sure.
Ed Stetzer:
Okay. So then what then are some of the key strategic plans that you would say that? And again, let’s stay on the smaller size of the church because that’s for everybody. But one of them is that guest, that first time guest. Clearly I got to have a strategic plan for that. Yeah. And it could be at a church of a church of 100 people. It could be send them a letter. Somebody call them next week, send them another letter, send them an invite to a special event.
Eric Geiger:
I’d say start exactly with that and then monitor it and say, you know what? Let’s, let’s let’s try this action instead of this action. And you keep tweaking.
Ed Stetzer:
You know, it’s important though, because most I think it’s maybe most it might be hard to say, but a whole lot of pastors don’t think that way. So sometimes when I’m doing a church revitalization seminar and I say I put it on, I put it on a screen, Here’s five ways to contact somebody after they visit some people. It’s the biggest news that they’ve ever seen.
Eric Geiger:
And I think it’s awesome. It’s the biggest news because if they take a picture of that thing of that slide and they go home and do something, it will make an impact. It really does.
Ed Stetzer:
And they see it and they feel it totally.
Eric Geiger:
It’s huge. Like a shower, you know, old school. Yeah.
Ed Stetzer:
That is old school.
Eric Geiger:
Come on man I’ve been I’m a church nerd. I’ve been in the game dude.
Ed Stetzer:
But I’ll shower like, he’s like famous in that space.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah, yeah, but I think he said that only 10% of church leaders are strategic. Okay, so if you if you.
Ed Stetzer:
Are, what does that mean? Hopelessness for the read the 90% or they can adopt some.
Eric Geiger:
I don’t think it is because I think you can get some strategic people around you and you’d say, hey, um, these six people I want us to care for, I just threw out the number six. I think we might have six really strong, intentional processes. So tell me, what are the six?
Ed Stetzer:
Don’t don’t tease me. What are the six intentional processes?
Eric Geiger:
The guest. Okay. The new believer. Yep. Someone who signs up for a group.
Ed Stetzer:
Right? A small group setting.
Eric Geiger:
Yeah. Rooted. Or, you know, some type of next step, right? Someone who signs up to serve. Yeah. Someone who goes on some type of outreach and someone who gives for the first time.
Ed Stetzer:
So those are six kind of strategic plans, I think. And I think the church of 200 could have those things. It might just be like a sheet of paper. It doesn’t have to be a volunteer. Coordinates.
Eric Geiger:
I the reason the reason those six. And I’m sure there’ll be some pastors who say, yeah, but what about this? What about when someone commits to having a devotional? Right. Awesome, right? Sure. Number seven. Um, the reason we have those six currently is those are really critical moments in somebody’s life. Yeah. That’s good. When somebody becomes a believer, when somebody shows up at church, you gotta.
Ed Stetzer:
Know what you’re doing next. We should.
Eric Geiger:
Know. But you say.
Ed Stetzer:
Well, it’s just baptism. But at the same time, my my friend Dan Morgan from years ago, he was with the Lord now. He said that people come to Christ, or adults in particular, have usually had some sort of big life problem, like something has gone wrong in their life. So they need relational stability. They need spiritual stability. They need functional stability. Sometimes they’re struggling with an addiction or something, and if you don’t have any process to help them, you’re going to lose.
Eric Geiger:
Them, man. Jesus compares our rebirth to being born again. You know, our becoming a Christian and being born again. When I was born, a nurse whisked me away, did all kinds of tests, wrapped me in a cloth, a swaddling cloth, swaddling cloth.
Ed Stetzer:
Put you in a manger?
Eric Geiger:
No, but. But cared for me, right? Cared? Cared how I was treated. We have people who are born again in our presence. We should. We should know how we’re going to care for them. You know, and.
Ed Stetzer:
Even if it’s a five bullet points on a sheet of paper. So I would say that a church of 200, let’s say, let’s say a small church of 100, you’re probably a solo pastor, maybe with a part time pastoral team and some volunteers to just say, I want us to do this. When someone comes to Christ, I want us to do this when someone visits our church. That’s strategic level that everyone should have at our level. Probably all six of those things have a staff member or multiple staff members.
Eric Geiger:
So at that church, you have it. I agree with you. You have it on a piece of paper so that so that more people can be involved in.
Ed Stetzer:
Right, right. And a piece of paper that you type into an email and you send it to the volunteers.
Eric Geiger:
And this is going to be hopefully I haven’t put a burden on anybody yet, but I’m about to make a strong statement. Okay.
Ed Stetzer:
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Eric Geiger:
Because I believe God cares about the people who he saves being shepherded. Yeah, I think one of the reasons that there are lots of churches across our country where nobody meets Jesus is because the leaders don’t know what they would do with people when they met Jesus. They’re just they’re not prepared to care for people, to shepherd people. And and so, yes, you don’t have to have a complex system, but you should know, here’s what we’re going to do when somebody becomes a Christian so that we can disciple the person. We’re not just trying to get someone to sign a card. We want some. We want people to be cared for. Mhm.
Ed Stetzer:
Okay, good. All right. So then we’re talking about those. You had six for example six was a strategic processes. Is that the language you use.
Eric Geiger:
We say um it’s an intentional process for excuse me for sheep. There’s the flock strategy and the sheep strategy.
Ed Stetzer:
And the and then there are six in this case six sheep strategy processes that sort of go from there. Okay. All right. So so then and those all have cycles of planning to them that can be really complicated. So back to where we started. So we go to the pastor’s gathering and we’re talking about a lot.
Eric Geiger:
Of stuff man I know.
Ed Stetzer:
I know.
Eric Geiger:
But I mean we’re covering everything from values to mission.
Ed Stetzer:
In a lot. Well, again.
Eric Geiger:
This is where.
Ed Stetzer:
Guest this is where I’d say with the course that we’re doing with right now pastors. Plus again, it’s right now pastors plus.org. You go through a lot of this stuff.
Eric Geiger:
Actually that one’s about leadership development.
Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. Leadership development which is one of the processes. And then we’ll do future things as well. Okay. So that being said let’s come now to the teaching plan. So this is the thing that kind of lit up my social media when I posted about it. So how does that fit into strategic planning. And again we both have one in our hand. But most people listen to this. They don’t they don’t watch this. So but the teaching plan you have in the summertime, you know, you take some time for your study break, study break. Not everyone can do that. So. But everyone can develop a teaching plan. Why do you think it’s important? What do you do? How do you do it? Tell us about it.
Eric Geiger:
To me, it’s important for three reasons. I thought a lot about why I do it. Because it’s hard to do.
Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, yeah, I was surprised. Like. Like I know what I know the verse and the title that I’m preaching this fall. I mean, fall 2025 and we’re in 2024. Yeah. So you’ve already assigned to me, you know.
Eric Geiger:
The week, the verse, the title and and like a 4 or 5 sentence summary of what we want to accomplish.
Ed Stetzer:
So and you do that to all the teaching pastors kind of lay that out. So we’re slotted in. So I don’t know anybody who. And again it might intimidate people. But I want you to talk about why that level of detail and precision that far ahead. I had a couple people because it kind of blew up on social media. Well, what if the Holy Spirit moves differently? Yeah, I love that question. So talk to us about all that.
Eric Geiger:
Okay. So I got a theological answer to that because I’m going to I’m going to be bothered if I don’t. Okay good. And then I’ll and then I’ll say the benefits. So does does the Holy Spirit have the right to edit this? Absolutely. Full submission to the spirit. What we also believe the Spirit of God exists outside of time. We have a triune God whose eternal father, son, and spirit who’ve been in an eternal relationship with each other forever. And they together as one exist outside of time. Which means, according to my systematic theologian textbooks I’ve read, which I agree with, that God sees this moment with the same vividness and clarity that he sees the moment I’m going to be teaching, or you’re going to be teaching that message a year from now.
Ed Stetzer:
So a year from now.
Eric Geiger:
So he can he sees that moment, though, with the same clarity and vividness, that he sees this moment so he can lead and he can lead us in this moment for that moment because he sees it all. He sees it all equally together. So I think sometimes when someone says, um, it’s unspiritual to prepare as if I have a low view of God. I think they have a low view of God. I have a high view of God that he exists outside of time.
Ed Stetzer:
I can tell you’re I’m.
Eric Geiger:
A little bothered, a little.
Ed Stetzer:
Bothered by that.
Eric Geiger:
A little, get a little.
Ed Stetzer:
And I would say too, if, if a 911 were to happen. There’s ability to adjust or a.
Eric Geiger:
Pandemic, which we adjusted the whole year. Sure.
Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, exactly. So there’s ability to adjust. But why then, this level of clarity and how does it serve the leadership of the church? Well?
Eric Geiger:
Okay. I think it’s best for me. It’s best for our staff and best for our church. One, and I’d say not every leader is how I am. And that’s why I’ve heard I’ve had friends say, man, I could never do it. It wouldn’t work for me. They they feel like they need a little bit of the pressure of the week of. Interesting. I don’t do well with it. Right. I, I, I try to, I try to hack my life to get that pressure out of my life. Mhm. I don’t like I don’t operate, I’m not at my best. If I wake up on Monday with a blank sheet of paper. Okay. I’m, I’m at my best. If I wake up on Monday with a sense of where I’m going with the teaching. So that that’s.
Ed Stetzer:
Part of your remarkably organized individual and this fits that.
Eric Geiger:
But I. And then it even helps me in my sermon prep because I, I know what I’m teaching with clarity. A month out I’m able to see illustrations in real life. You know, something happens in the Olympics. I’m like, oh, that’s going to be an illustration here. Right, right. Because I know what I’m teaching.
Ed Stetzer:
And that is a gift. Because if you know what you’re doing eight weeks from now and you see an illustration, you can tie that in.
Eric Geiger:
You see them all the.
Ed Stetzer:
Time because you will not see them if you don’t know what you’re.
Eric Geiger:
Preaching. You can’t see them. Right. But life offers you tons of illustrations if you know where you’re going. So. But that’s selfish. It’s best for me. But I would do it even if it was just for that, because it lowers the the overwhelm ness of Monday. If I have a sense, right. It’s best for the team. For example, um, when we plan child dedications or baptism weekends or rooted celebration weekends or a weekend where we’re going to promote rooted, our team is able to look at my teaching calendar and say, oh, this is the message where we should put this in.
Ed Stetzer:
And it actually, in some cases there’s little notations of that week that that it is that thing that it’s routed weekend.
Eric Geiger:
Because I’ve already met with the team before I passed this out. And we put some of those things. So I have it in.
Ed Stetzer:
My hand here. And so like, um, EP and IB and GP, what do those mean? Ep is.
Eric Geiger:
Extended prayer.
Ed Stetzer:
So it’s extended prayer that follows the service. Ib I.
Eric Geiger:
Believe it’s where.
Ed Stetzer:
We where we call people to trust in Christ. Faith and GP giving push.
Eric Geiger:
Giving. Push.
Ed Stetzer:
Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Fair enough. I’m bringing it all out. So you have it.
Eric Geiger:
We might need a better acronym. Yeah, but.
Ed Stetzer:
No. That’s important. I think it’s important to bring those things.
Eric Geiger:
Or outreach.
Ed Stetzer:
Weekend. Outreach weekend. So these are all things that are tied in. And your sermons kind of line up with those because people again, the year may intimidate some people. Actually it’s not even a year. I mean, we’re this is 2025, so it’s 18 months out.
Eric Geiger:
It’s 18 months out, but it’s a 12 month plan.
Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, 12 month plan. So but people could do a quarterly plan. You could do a six month plan. So tell me more about benefits because you mentioned the staff benefits.
Eric Geiger:
Oh the staff benefit is they they’re able to align things that they care about to the teaching plan. What would I tell the staff frequently is there’s so much energy that is created from our weekend services. You your ministry will be more fruitful if you attach to energy that’s already created, instead of trying to create something over on the side. So that that means just strategically looking at what your ministry is doing and seeing places to attach to our teaching.
Ed Stetzer:
That makes sense. That gives the staff freedom. And I like dad Fest is on here. Expo. That’s our ministry. Expo. People get involved. Okay. So you plan those things out? Yes. Okay. So you lay this out and it helps the staff. How does this help the congregation? Because they don’t see this.
Eric Geiger:
No, but they see the fruit of it, right? For sure. It helps the congregation because we have a staff that’s more aligned. You have a senior pastor that is healthier, right? Sure. You have a teaching plan that’s been really well thought out of how we’re going to feed you spiritually. There’s a lot of work that goes into how I mean, my wife was a school teacher. You know, the school teacher’s kind of a lesson plan. School teacher have teaching plans. I mean, what if third grade elementary teachers woke up on Monday and decided, what am I going to teach the kids this week? Right. Right. That. No, they they are like there’s objectives and goals that we we we’re accountable for these children to learn these things. Um, so for the sake of our church, I feel it’s a balanced diet. We we you.
Ed Stetzer:
Frame out what you want to do, hit major themes.
Eric Geiger:
So we think about there’s some there’s eight sermon series this next year. Um, and there’s some that are life application. Right.
Ed Stetzer:
So mostly I would say it’s some expository through books of the Bible. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
There’s three books of the Bible in there. Right. And then and then some theology.
Ed Stetzer:
And we do the on the table, which has become kind of a staple for us is the hard issues in January. Don’t, don’t. Clarity is kindness. Let’s tell what we believe. Put it on the table. Yeah.
Eric Geiger:
We said to be clear. To serve your people well.
Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. Okay. So When you. When I bring a group of students to you and we you come talk to some of my, my cohorts that we do. So they’re going to someone’s asking a question and they’re going to say, well Eric, what would you suggest I do to start to have this level of planning and clarity with my teaching and preaching? Because I’m guessing a 2025 plan that’s done in summer 2024 is not going to be doable for them. Where could I start with this, Eric?
Eric Geiger:
I think what you said is wise. You know, a couple of months out, if would it be fruitful for you to get away once every six months or three times a year for two days and map, you know, further out in terms of your next 2 or 3 series? Would that be would that be helpful? And again, you’re not planning the sermon, right? You’re planning the passage, the topic, and a bit of a here’s this, a summary of what I’m going to pray happens in people’s lives.
Ed Stetzer:
Super. Okay, so maybe last kind of question for a couple of quick things. So what are some common mistakes people make when it comes to their planning processes, their strategic plan, whatever else it may be.
Eric Geiger:
Strategy being disconnected from mission. So you’re having strategic things that that really don’t add any value. You know, um that’s one. Having strategies for the least important things and not the most important things. I mean, a strategy takes time to develop. Have strategy around the the absolute essentials for your ministry, which.
Ed Stetzer:
You say that, but that’s often where people don’t have the strategy. In other words, someone comes to Christ. Let’s just see what happens.
Eric Geiger:
Dude, we literally have strategies in some churches for how to book a room, but not strategies for how to follow up on a new Christian. Mhm. Come on guys. Yeah.
Ed Stetzer:
All right. Uh, last last question. Um, what do you think happens to a pastor and a church leader when they be more strategic and the vision, values, mission and strategy plans. What have you seen happen when that strategy takes a higher level and they begin to function at that level? Because people like we might say 10% do, but when they do, what do you see happen?
Eric Geiger:
So this is where I hope pastors who are thinking, man, I did not get in. I became a pastor of Shepherd people not to.
Ed Stetzer:
And I beg people say that, and I love them when they say because I want them to think that that’s.
Eric Geiger:
So beautiful, right? But if you have effective strategies, you’re freed up to shepherd. Here’s just an illustration from the, um, from the marketplace. And this would be in the micro strategy. Not not a broad strategy, but like very minutia of strategy, but how important it is. So Atul Gawande, he wrote the book. He’s he’s at Harvard. He wrote the book, The Checklist Manifesto. So he would go to doctors and say, I’m telling you, you’ll lower post-surgery infections and and illnesses if you have a checklist. And he said that often they would say, I didn’t get into this for a checklist. So like a pastor saying, I didn’t get into this for a strategy, I know I’m I’m a professional and some would even say I don’t need a checklist. That’s so minutia. I’m I’m a high level.
Ed Stetzer:
High level.
Eric Geiger:
I don’t need that. And he he believed. No, it’s because you operate at a high level that you need that actually have a checklist for the standard things so that your all of your energy could be given towards what you became a doctor for in the first place. So he then it’s either 6 or 7 hospitals that he he tested this for a period of time. He got these hospitals to agree to implement a checklist. And he was right. All post-surgery infections went down. Um, people being healthier. All of the all of the all of the things that he thought would happen. His hypothesis turned to be true. And doctors found out. Wow. Actually, having a micro strategy allow frees me up to do what I’m supposed to be doing. So that’s what I would say to to pastors. I’m glad you didn’t get into this for the strategy. I’m glad you’re into this for the shepherding, but having some strategies will help. Will free you up and your team and your people. Because I’m believing that you believe that every believer in your church is a priest. Royal priesthood, every every believer in your church has a gift you want them to be freed up to to serve too. So having strategies actually helps liberate people for shepherding.
Ed Stetzer:
Eric Geiger, looking forward to the course you’re doing is designed to lead. Yes. You use that title, right?
Eric Geiger:
It’s a book that Kevin Peck and I wrote. Yeah.
Ed Stetzer:
And it’ll be at uh, at right now. Pastors.org and people can get information beforehand as well. Thanks for taking the time. Absolutely man. The podcast thanks for having me.
Daniel Yang:
You’ve been hearing from Eric Geiger. Be sure to check out his course design and lead on right now. Pastors plus.org. You can learn more about Eric at Eric geiger.com and find his podcast at Church leaders.com/podcast Network. And thanks again for listening to the Stetzer Church Leaders Podcast. You can find more interviews, as well as other great content from ministry leaders at Church leaders.com/podcast. And again, if you found the conversation helpful today, I’d love for you to take a few moments. Leave us a review that will help other ministry leaders find us and benefit from our content. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you in the next episode.
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